…that Scots botanists worked for fifty-three years to breed a plaid thistle, only to have their work scuttled when they could not agree on which plaid to specify?

…that the judge at the first Westminster Kennel Club show narrowly avoided being crushed by the paw of a giant schnauzer?

…that there are now more fruit flies in undergraduate biology laboratories than there are in all the wholesale fruit warehouses in the world?

…that James Buchanan was actually a crude clockwork automaton operated by John C. Breckenridge?

…that Julius Caesar’s Gallic War was mostly ghostwritten for him by a professional agency in Ostia?

…that the last heir to the Kingdom of Hanover is a Welsh corgi named Pips, currently in the possession of Queen Elizabeth II?

…that no explorer has ever returned alive from Perth Amboy, New Jersey?

…that false assertions outnumber true ones on the Internet by nearly 138 to 1?